Miyage
Miyage ( Japanese 土産 , often with honorific prefix 御 o- ) are souvenirs or souvenirs from trips in Japanese . Miyage are mainly foods that represent regional specialties ( Meibutsu ) or have a symbol or image of the travel destination printed on them.
Miyage represent a social duty ( giri ) that neighbors and work colleagues expect out of courtesy after a trip, even on a short day trip, while souvenirs, in contrast, are bought spontaneously for themselves. For this reason, Miyage is offered in many variations in every popular travel destination, as well as train and bus stations, and there are far more souvenir shops than in comparable places in Europe.
Popular miyages are filled sticky rice balls ( mochi ), rice crackers ( senbei ) or filled biscuits.
Originally, however, Miyage were not food because of their perishability, but according to Franziska Ehmcke “Something that you take with you from the shrine, ie. H. an amulet or something else consecrated, sacred ”. Pilgrims of the Edo period would have received a gift, mostly money, as a farewell, sembetsu , from the members of their community before starting their journey . In return, the pilgrims would have brought a “gift from the shrine”, miyage , with them when they returned to their community , in order to include those who stayed at home in the journey in a symbolic and concrete way. According to the railway scientist Yūichirō Suzuki, it was only the faster transport option of the railroad that allowed less durable goods such as food to be brought back as souvenirs, which then became established as Miyage. At the same time, this led to the emergence of new regional specialties such as Abekawa mochi , which was originally a normal mochi, whose recipe was then replaced by Gyūhi , whose higher sugar content made it more durable for long train journeys .
etymology
The characters used have the meaning “product of the earth” and share this with the word dosan or tosan with the primary meaning “regional product”. Dosan / Tosan is the Sino-Japanese reading of the word taken from China. In this regard, the pronunciation miyage has no relation to the spelling, but is an older term to which characters were only subsequently assigned without regard to their pronunciation ( jukujikun ). The meaning of Miyage itself is unclear, whereby mostly miya ( 宮 ) for Shinto shrine and ke ( 笥 ) for "food container" is assumed, i. H. food brought along when visiting shrine festivals , but also miyako ( 都 ) for “capital” and ke , ie food brought back from visits to the capital; miyake ( 屯 倉 ) another jukujikun for a crown property or imperial food store ; or miyako and kaeru for "to return".
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Japan’s 'omiyage' culture. In: Japan Today. April 4, 2013, accessed August 27, 2015 .
- ^ A b c Louise H. Kidder, Susan Muller: What Is “Fair” in Japan? In: Herman Steensma, Riël Vermunt (Ed.): Social Justice in Human Relations . Volume 2: Societal and Psychological Consequences of Justice and Injustice. Springer, New York 1991, ISBN 1-4899-2631-3 , pp. 140–141 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- ↑ myAge in East Asia lexicon of the East Asia Institute of the University of Ludwigshafen am Rhein
- ↑ Franziska Ehmcke: Travel fever of the Edo period. In: Franziska Ehmcke, Masako Shōno-Sládek (ed.): Facets of the urban civil culture of Japan from 17th to 19th Century. Academium, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-89129-307-0 , p. 65.
- ↑ 鈴木 勇 一郎 . In: researchmap. Japan Science and Technology Agency, accessed August 27, 2015 (Japanese).
- ↑ 土産 . In: 日本 大 百科全書 and 世界 大 百科 事 典 第 ２ 版 at kotobank.jp. Retrieved February 24, 2015 (Japanese).